Can an Online Contest help to Build Awareness and Activate Users with Special Needs?The Case of the LITERACY-Contest

People with special needs ? in our case struggling readers and dyslexic persons ? tend to be socially disadvantaged and even excluded. In order to help such people to deal with their challenges, a consortium of seven partners constructed the online LITERACY portal and aimed to disseminate it to enable awareness building and active inclusion. One amongst other dissemination paths was a contest for struggling readers who were invited to submit user-generated content via the portal?s forum. In this article we describe the process of planning, setting up and implementing the contest, searching for sponsors, disseminating information about the contest, and reflecting upon the whole experience. Thereby the focus lies on whether the contest managed to raise awareness for dyslexia and whether it could activate struggling readers participating in the contest. Readers intending to organize an online contest are expected to find valuable experience to inform their own enterprise.